<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>i'm so in love with you by manycoloureddays</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315559">i'm so in love with you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/manycoloureddays/pseuds/manycoloureddays'>manycoloureddays</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Getting Together, M/M, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:07:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,170</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315559</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/manycoloureddays/pseuds/manycoloureddays</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>His phone lights up with a text from ‘Mike Hanlon [pink sparkle heart emoji]’. He groans. Again. Apparently he’s the sort of person who falls in love with his best friend and can never find the right words to tell him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>88</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i'm so in love with you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/butiamhome/gifts">butiamhome</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>one big enormous HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dear friend jd, i am so grateful for your presence in my life, i hope you enjoy this little present! </p><p>title from i am so in love with you by ball park music</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Yeah man, can’t wait to see you. I love you too. Bye.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bill hangs up the call and immediately slides his phone as far away from himself as possible. Unfortunately this is the one time it deigns to actually slide with any kind of velocity and it falls to the floor with a clatter. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie squawks and bends to scoop it up, but Audra and Richie just laugh at him. Audra because she’s the one who bought him a top of the line protective phone case, one of the ones that can help a phone survive being driven over or thrown into a volcano, and Richie because he’s an asshole probably. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are all your conversations with Mike that awkward?” Richie asks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bill flips him off. “Fuck off, Richard. Like you were any better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh I don’t know about that,” Eddie says. “I don’t remember Richie ever encouraging me to go on a </span>
  <em>
    <span>date</span>
  </em>
  <span> with someone after I dropped several hints that I was driving down the coast and wanted to crash at his place for a few weeks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s because you didn’t ask him, you just flew to Chicago and assumed he’d let you stay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I was right. But he still never told me to go out with someone else, William, which was the point I was actually trying to make.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bill drops his head forward and groans into his hands. Audra is still giggling, but she does pat his head which makes him feel a little better. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Honey, I remember when you first caught feelings for me, and believe me, this is much more painful.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bill would be glad they’re in a place where they can tease each other like this, but right now it is of no benefit to him so he sticks his tongue out at her instead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Richie gasps dramatically. “Auds, pretty please with a cherry on top will you tell us stories of disaster boyfriend Billiam Denbrough? I will love you forever!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll love me forever anyway,” Audra says, because she is the most loyal and steadfast person in this room, and thus Bill’s current favourite. Then she goes and ruins it by adding, “but if you buy me a pizza, I’ll show you the photos I have from our first date.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks up to glare at her, but she’s not paying him any attention. Richie has started scrolling through his phone, and Audra is leaning against his side so she can watch like a hawk, dictating the pizza order to him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bill goes back to doing what he does best, burying his face in his hands and hiding from his problems. Eddie comes to stand beside him, putting Bill’s phone down gently next to his elbow like it didn’t just survive his overwhelming embarrassment reflex. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Every so often his new reality hits him like a tonne of bricks. He feels like he should be used to it by now, but he mentioned it to Ben once, in passing, and he’d said 18 months wasn’t long enough for him to feel fully settled into this new life either. Bill doesn’t know about the others, but he presumes it’s something similar. A return to self with an extra helping of growth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s no longer William Denbrough, celebrated horror writer and husband of America’s sweetheart, Audra Phillips. He’s just Bill, formerly of Derry. Bill who lost his brother and then lost the six people who helped him put his heart back together piece by unloved piece when they were only thirteen years old. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s the sort of person who is better friends with his ex wife now they’re no longer married, who has pizza and movie night with two of his best friends when they’re in town for the weekend and doesn’t complain when they invite said ex wife to come along. Richie and Audra may be portrayed as unlikely friends by the tabloids, but they are both equally ridiculous thorns in Bill’s side. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie taps Bill’s phone screen and looks at him pointedly. If Bill is supposed to glean something specific from the look, it goes right over his head. He raises an eyebrow and waits Eddie out. He wins, of course.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie sighs. “I don’t understand why you can’t just tell him how you feel.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’ve had this conversation a couple of times now. Bill calling Eddie as soon as he’s hung up from Mike and bursting out with something like “he remembered one of my favourite lines I’ve ever written, and it’s from a book that came out seven years ago” or “does it mean something that he’s sending pictures of flowers from his walks or does he do that with all of you?” or “his </span>
  <em>
    <span>laugh</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Eddieeee”, before he’s even said hello. One time he even spoke for half an hour about the way Mike said his name. Eddie always tuts sympathetically until Bill’s got it all off his chest before clearing his throat and telling Bill to be an adult and use his words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not as simple as that,” Bill whines in response to the most recent utterance of the phrase.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Literally how? How is it not that simple? There is no one else on the planet he talks to every day. Sometimes he takes days to get back to me, even when I’ve asked him a specific question. It’s not like you can be nervous this isn’t going to go the way you want it to, right? You’re a writer Bill, words are your whole thing, use them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is fair, he supposes, as Eddie continues to spill words all over his kitchen. If all situations that required words were the same, it would be that simple. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s a writer, sure, but he’s not a poet, and he’s certainly not a speaker. It still takes a whole lot of concentration not to stutter, for one thing. And for another, writing is something he can do on his own. Something no one needs to see until he’s satisfied, until he’s revised and edited and bullied his words into something resembling the thoughts he began with. He can build whole entire worlds with his words, but communicating what he’s feeling, in real time, to someone whose good opinion of him matters? To someone so important he can’t even begin to comprehend losing them? To someone who holds his heart in their hand? That’s a whole other kettle of fish. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The most he’s managed so far was a conversation they had a month or so ago now—it was actually four weeks and three days, give or take a couple of hours. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mike had been walking back to his hotel after dinner and they were talking about nothing in particular. Bill had been multitasking, keeping up with their meandering conversation while his brain went a mile a minute, thinking about all the ways Mike managed to make his days better simply by existing in them. At any given moment in Bill’s day, somewhere out there in the world was Mike Hanlon, going about his own. Thinking about Mike was all it took, some days, to put a smile on his face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d been thinking all of this very quickly while Mike told a story about a dog he’d seen, so it had been a startling non sequitur when he’d blurted out, “you’re really important to me, you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mike to his credit hadn’t stumbled. He’d just responded warmly, kindly. “You’re really important to me too, Bill.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And the conversation had moved on. Bill had missed another moment.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His phone lights up with a text from ‘Mike Hanlon [pink sparkle heart emoji]’. He groans. Again. Apparently he’s the sort of person who falls in love with his best friend and can never find the right words to tell him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie yanks the phone out of his reach before he can throw it, and Audra and Richie cackle with laughter. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Remind me why I thought it was a good idea to introduce my ex wife to your boyfriend?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bill must sound extra pitiful, because Eddie starts patting his hair, scratching his nails through it on every third or fourth pat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It feels nice. Bill pushes his head back against Eddie’s hand to let him know it feels nice, just in case he gets any ideas about stopping. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fiancé, actually,” Eddie says, very casually. Too casually. Bill does a quick check through his mental filing cabinets and finds no previous mention of an Eddie and Richie engagement. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Excuse the fuck out of me?” He sits up straight and glares at both of them. “When did this happen? </span>
  <em>
    <span>How </span>
  </em>
  <span>did this happen? What happened to taking it slow? You haven’t secretly been together more than a month, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Richie’s eyes are bright, and he’s beaming so wide that Bill has to squash down the urge to say something sappy like </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m so proud of you, both of you, holy shit, you both deserve this</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We figured twenty seven years was slow enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bill looks at Eddie. His dimples are at canyon depth, and there’s not an ounce of nervous energy anywhere near him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s practically glowing when he says, “I bought the ring months ago. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bill feels a little like he’s intruding when they look at each other, they’re smiling so softly. But he’s had a lifetime of intruding on the Losers, so he just lets them have a minute before he leaps at Eddie, drags him over to Richie, and hugs them both. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shit, you two,” he says, absolutely not close to tears. “I’m so happy for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pulls back to look at them again and has to turn away so the small number of tears in his eyes don’t turn into a flood. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now there’s a bit of space between the three of them, Audra jumps in to offer her own congratulations and Bill reaches instinctively for his phone. He wants to tell Mike. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s come to anticipate the urge, and sometimes he manages to curb it. Just a little. Just so he doesn’t overwhelm Mike. But every exciting piece of news, every cute dog he meets, every song he listens to, every writing idea he has, he wants to share them all with Mike. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wants Mike to be here. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wants what Richie and Eddie have, except he doesn’t want that at all. He wants what he and Mike have, but in the same physical space, and maybe with additional hand holding, making out and dick sucking if Mike is into that. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Jesus</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he thinks. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’ve got it mind bogglingly bad</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It does give him an idea though. Something he and Mike share, something different to Richie and Eddie, something just theirs and something he knows how to do. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He just needs to sit down at his laptop for a few days and do it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fortunately Mike’s taking his time, meandering down the coast. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s got three weeks. He can do this. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The first short story he writes doesn’t contain any horror whatsoever. It’s a challenge, but it’s also refreshing. It feels like dusting off Silver in Derry, before the inevitable rusty collapse. It feels like Mike rushing to hug him at the Jade. It feels like hearing Bev’s laugh for the first time in twenty years. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He relaxes into it. Finds voices he knows Mike will appreciate. Flexes muscles he didn’t even know he had to find the strange comedic moments that will hopefully make Mike smile. This he knows how to do. Write for an audience of one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He drafts a text, attaches the file, and breathes out a sigh of relief. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Bill: </b>
  <span>I haven’t written anything like this since college</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Bill: </b>
  <span>This is much better than those stories though</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Bill: </b>
  <span>At least, I hope it is!!!</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Bill: </b>
  <span>I thought it might be a nice bedtime story. I can almost be there with you tonight</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Mike: </b>
  <span>Did you</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Mike: </b>
  <span>Sorry, I didn’t mean to press send</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Mike: </b>
  <span>Did you write this for me?</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Bill: </b>
  <span>Yeah &lt;3</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Mike: </b>
  <span>Wow. Thanks man &lt;3</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The second story comes a little harder. This one is about them, about their friends. The people Mike sacrificed decades of his life for. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bill doesn’t think they’ll ever really get over it, the depth of that love and how much they want to make up for the years alone. They’ve all found their own ways of saying </span>
  <em>
    <span>thank you, I’m sorry, thank you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, in the last 18 months. They promised each other they’d never let a week go by without a proper conversation, they all wanted to get to know Mike as he was now, and once they had each other back, talking was addictive. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There had been a tense few days after Stan suggested some form of financial compensation. None of them quite diplomatic enough to phrase it right and Mike too proud, too used to going it alone to let anyone take care of him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was Patty who had made it right. Someone on the outside, someone who couldn’t draw on anything from a shared childhood to throw in anyone else’s face in the heat of the moment. When Patty put her foot down there was nothing any of them could do but say, “yes ma’am”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d put her cutlery down at dinner, and made sure he was looking her in the eye. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mike, if you’d left Derry with the rest of them, you’d be in the same financial position. None of them feel like they’ve earned it, not when it was on the back of your continued suffering.” She held up a hand then, when it seemed like he was going to cut in. “I didn’t say it made sense, I’m just explaining how they feel. And besides all of that, we may not always be very good at it, as a country, but taking care of one another is what people are meant to do. We live in a community, we’re a family. Letting us help you is just another favour you can do us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes ma’am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, really, any tensions aside, writing a story just for Mike and not including their family is unthinkable. It does take him all seven days to finish it though. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Mike</b>
  <span>: Bill. I don’t even know what to say. </span>
</p><p>
  <b>Mike: </b>
  <span>Thank you </span>
</p><p>
  <b>Bill:</b>
  <span> We love them all, I just figured it would be nice to see them get their happy ending</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Mike: </b>
  <span>We get to see that in real life now too</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Mike: </b>
  <span>This is really special</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Mike: </b>
  <span>Thank you &lt;3</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Bill: </b>
  <span>You’re welcome &lt;3</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>And now, the final piece. The worst disguise a piece of romantic fiction has possibly ever had. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He asked Audra to read it yesterday, his old first critic. She had smiled her way through it, and at the end, eyes a little shiny, she’d stood up and kissed his cheek and told him, “you’re a real sweetheart, when you want to be”. He figures that’s a good enough endorsement. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks at the fifteen page story on his desk. Clean title page. 12pt font. Double spaced, single sided. His heart on his sleeve, metaphorically speaking. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie keeps saying he should use his words, and that is what he’s tried to do. He’s poured every ounce of what he feels for Mike into the words it took to tell him a story. The final story. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The plot isn’t important, although Bill’s actually pretty proud of this one. It’s more that it’s meticulously curated to tick every one of Mike’s boxes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’ve spent hours talking about stories and storytelling, about favourite books and least favourite authors, about literary moments that have stuck with them across all the decades they had to spend apart, and Bill was paying attention the whole time. He’s pretty sure if any story is going to say, ‘I hear you, I see you, you’re my favourite person, I love you’, it’s this one. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The doorbell rings, and Bill nearly panic throws the manuscript across the room. He really needs to work on that particular impulse. </span><br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he pulls the door open he’s only a little out of breath. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He starts to say something, a traditional greeting that one would expect to hear when showing up at a friend’s house after months apart. But Mike is standing there, the afternoon sun behind him, beaming like Bill’s the best thing he’s seen all day. What is Bill supposed to say in response to that?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Mike starts, because his brain has clearly remained online. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Ooof</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bill throws himself into Mike’s arms and hugs as tight as Mike had hugged him at the Jade. Mike doesn’t pull away or even poke fun at Bill’s enthusiasm. He just wraps his arms around Bill and holds him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mike gives the best hugs. Bill knew this as a kid, and he has relearned it in the last year and a bit. Mike hugs the way he loves, warm and like he’ll never let go. Bill doesn’t want him to. He wants to stand here like this for the next three weeks. He wants to stand here like this forever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It hasn’t been that long since they saw each other. Three short months since Stan’s birthday weekend away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It feels like longer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s only been a day since their last proper phone call; Bill at the grocery store, narrating his choices to Mike, trying to gauge whether there was anything in particular he should have in stock when Mike arrived. He wants Mike to feel at home here. He wants Mike to feel like he can settle, if he wants.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually one of them pulls back, and Bill is forced to look up at Mike’s face. He’s grinning down at Bill, bright and a little bit teasing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Feeling like you can stand on your own two feet again?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In a moment of strange, but miraculously timed coherence, Bill manages to grin up at him, “nah, I’m good here, if it’s all the same to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can feel Mike’s laugh where their chests are pressed together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can stay there as long as you like, love.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s something in Mike’s eyes. A question, or maybe an answer. Bill thinks about the final story, still waiting on his desk. But maybe words aren’t what he needs right now. Maybe he’s used enough of them. Maybe they’re already on the same page. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shifts in Mike’s arms, loops his arms around his shoulders instead of his waist. Catches his eye to check in. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Is this okay?</span>
  </em>
  <span> Mike pulls him closer, leans in, just a fraction closer than before. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Yes</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kissing Mike feels inevitable after that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bill knows it’s not. Knows the work they’ve put into being here. It’s all in the words still waiting in the study. The words Mike can read later tonight, once Bill’s finally able to let him go. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For now, he’s perfectly comfortable to stand in his doorway kissing Mike. No words necessary. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, almost no words. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you.”</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>you can find me at swordbev on twitter where i literally never stop talking about any of these losers</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>